Tribes Get Unfavorable News

May 24, 2005|By RICK GREEN; Courant Staff Writer

Ten days after the Department of Interior overturned their federal recognition, the Schaghticoke and Eastern Pequot Indians learned Monday that they won't be able to submit additional evidence to bolster a final review of their cases.

The tribes, whose recognition was vacated by an administrative appeals judge citing a lack of "reliable" evidence, had been hoping they would be permitted to offer additional documentation to strengthen their applications. But under Interior Department rules, the Bureau of Indian Affairs must use only existing, on-the-record evidence as it reconsiders both tribal groups.

``Unsolicited arguments, evidence, comments and briefings from the petitioners and interested parties will not be accepted,'' said Mike Olsen, acting principal deputy assistant secretary, in separate letters to Richard Velky, the Schaghticoke chief, and Marcia Flowers, chairwoman of the Eastern Pequots. He prohibited the tribes and their opponents from having any contact with staff members reviewing the petitions from both tribes.

``I don't know what to think any longer,'' said Velky, whose tribe lost its federal recognition May 13 at the end of a week in which the governor, the state's two senators and three of the state's representatives testified against the Schaghticokes in Washington, D.C. Velky said the tribe had hoped to be able to discuss with BIA staff questions that have arisen about 19th-century marriage rates among tribal members.

Documentation of significant levels of inter-marriage among Schaghticokes -- used by the tribe to demonstrate evidence of political cohesiveness and community for time periods for which few records exist -- was first accepted and later rejected as inadequate by the BIA. The Schaghticokes say they have additional evidence that would clarify the BIA's concerns, raised unexpectedly after the tribe had submitted all documentation.

Still, despite Monday's news, Velky said he believes the 30,000 pages of documents previously submitted to the BIA will persuade the agency to stand by its original decision of January 2004 to recognize the tribe.

``We think the evidence is there already. Maybe they didn't understand it all,'' Velky said. ``We will wait to see what they think.''

The Schaghticokes were granted recognition in 2004, while the Eastern Pequots received it in 2002. Both cases were appealed by Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, supported by a coalition of municipalities and citizen groups opposed to more Indian casinos.

The tribes, who acknowledge they want to open gambling casinos, say federal recognition is a separate issue from gambling. Connecticut is home to the country's two largest Indian casinos, which bring in more than $400 million annually to the state treasury under a lucrative deal that allows the tribes to operate slot machines.

The May 13 ruling from the Interior Board of Indian Appeals said that the BIA, in recognizing the Schaghticokes and Easterns, relied too much on both tribes' long history of formal relations with the state, including state-supervised reservations that date back hundreds of years.

Flowers said her tribe had submitted so much evidence that state recognition wasn't even necessary to prove that the group persisted through the 19th and early 20th centuries.

``The tribe is confident that the BIA will reaffirm their prior two positive decisions,'' Flowers said.